Rickmansworth is the perfect mix of town and country

Local colour: Canal boats come to the Rickmansworth Festival every May (Picture: Alamy)

Rickmansworth featured in poet Sir John Betjeman’s 1973 documentary Metro-Land, celebrating the delights of the suburbs along the northern stretch of the Metropolitan line. But if you’re expecting street after street of identical mock Tudor semis, you’re in for a shock, as homes are a real mix – from Victorian cottages and bigger period houses to flats and contemporary villas built well after Betjeman’s time.

It might be a suburb but in many respects Rickmansworth seems more like a country town. For starters, it’s in Hertfordshire rather than Greater London and falls within Three Rivers District Council, so called because it’s where a trio of small rivers meet. The Grand Union Canal runs through the town, and there are no prizes for guessing that water is the focus of the Aquadrome, a nature reserve on the northern end of the Colne Valley Regional Park.

Its two lakes are on the site of former gravel pits – once extraction stopped in the 1920s, the lakes filled with water from natural springs and are now used for windsurfing, water skiing, kayaking, sailing and fishing.

Every year, on the third weekend in May, the network of waterways and lakes plays host to the Rickmansworth Festival. Canal boats from across the country moor along the towpath and events include live music, dance, an environmental show, funfair and beer tent.

Ricky – as locals refer to it – is on the edge of the Chilterns, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Some of the surrounding villages are picture-perfect. Accessed via narrow, hedge-lined lanes and with traditional village greens and ancient pubs, they look and feel as if they’re in deepest Dorset yet are moments from the M25. Sarratt, Chipperfield and Flaunden are particularly lovely. Such is the strength of local community spirit that when Sarratt’s village store went on the market a few years ago, 85 families clubbed together to buy it and keep it open.

Luxury homes on Valley Road, Rickmansworth (Picture: Supplied)

Superb connectivity is Rickmansworth’s trump card. The station, in Zone 7, gives commuters the choice of Chiltern Railways trains into Marylebone – taking under half an hour – and the Met line into the City. An annual Travelcard covering Zone 1 costs £2,488. Moor Park, a residential area on the outskirts, is one stop closer, and being in Zone 6, a Travelcard is marginally cheaper at £2,288. Its solid detached houses nestle in wide, grass-verged avenues. The largest house of all is Palladian, Grade I-listed Moor Park, a mansion dating from 1678 and now hired out as a venue. Two golf courses lie in the extensive grounds.

Loudwater is a private estate of mainly 20th-century Arts and Crafts-style houses in mature gardens. Around 20 surviving thatched houses, designed and built by the McNamara family in the 1920s, add to the semi-rural ambience. Rickmansworth town centre includes cottages, bigger houses and apartments, and the Cedars Estate consists of inter-war and post-war family houses. In Chorleywood, across the M25, 19th-century houses fringe the common, while elegant Victorian and Edwardian homes line the roads around the station.

Rickmansworth is also endowed with some excellent schools. Mixed secondary St Clement Danes is rated outstanding by Ofsted; Merchant Taylors’ is a high-achieving independent for boys; and The Royal Masonic, another private school, takes girls from age four to 18.

‘People move here for the schools and commuter links,’ says Chris Ryall of Hamptons International estate agents. ‘Many young families are coming in from North London and getting much more for their money. Demand is still very strong – properties are going for up to ten per cent above asking price, though prices have levelled. Two-bed apartments in the town centre are £250,000 to £450,000, and small terraced houses start at about £420,000. Houses in the Cedars Estate are between £650,000 and £1 million, and huge modern houses in prime roads such as The Drive and Valley Road sell for £1million to £2million plus.’

To rent, flats start at around £700, going up to £5,000 for a luxury family house in Moor Park.New homes tend to be built in small-scale, niche developments. At 33One, a collection of ten one and two-bed apartments and two-bed duplexes on Uxbridge Road, five homes remain priced from £285,000 through Preston Bennett and Sewell & Gardner.

Orchard Grove on Valley Road is a scheme of four luxury houses from Bewley Homes. The six-bed show home is £2.15million, including contents and a £150,000 allowance towards stamp duty, and a seven-bed house with wild flower meadow is £1.75million through Sewell & Gardner and Hamptons International. And in Chorleywood, Hamptons has two open-plan, barn-style houses at Latimer Chase. Backing on to fields and within St Clement Danes’ catchment area, a four-bed house is £1.695million and a five-bedder is £1.85million.